Sparks (2010) by Bickle Laura

Author:Bickle, Laura [Laura, Bickle,]
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2011-01-14T19:19:27.750000+00:00

The night dragged by. Anya often thought of these nights like stakeouts: long periods of inactivity and boredom, punctuated by coffee and pee breaks. If they were lucky, they'd scare up some random bit of evidence to chase. If not, it was a colossal waste of effort.

Leslie slept in her bed, surrounded by a nest of wires and techno-gegaws with LED lights Brian had taped to her skin. Brian said they were supposed to monitor respiration, sleep cycle pulse, and electromagnetic fields. A video camera perched on the nightstand with its unblinking red eyes, in the hope that an image of Leslie exiting her body might be recorded.

Chris slept on the couch, away from the equipment. His inked arms crossed over his chest, and he snored softly. Max and Jules had gone to the neighbor's house to watch for Leslie's appearance, leaving Katie, Brian, and Anya to watch over Leslie. Katie sat on the floor in Leslie's bedroom in darkness, her back to the wall, frowning at the EM field detector that was too confused by the other equipment in the room to read anything accurately. Brian and Anya had set up shop at the kitchen table, surrounded by monitors that glowed coldly in the dark.

Anya rubbed her neck, missing the warm amber light that Sparky cast at night. She glanced down at the iPhone on the table, displaying the thermal image of Sparky curled up with his eggs, and wished she were home. She wrapped her jacket more closely around her chest and sidled closer to Brian.

Brian fiddled with the contrast of a monitor displaying eleven jagged lines that wiggled across the screen.

"What's all that?" Anya asked.

"A polysomnographic record of Leslie's sleep patterns, in real time. We're basically conducting a sleep study. Remember the dozens of wires that we stuck on her?"

"Yeah. That seemed like a lot."

"Not really. A sleep study requires eleven channels." He pointed to the eleven squiggles on the screen. "The EKG uses ten electrodes to measure the electrical pulses of the heart. The electroencephalogram, the EEG, uses eight electrodes, and will tell us when Leslie's in different stages of sleep: non-REM, REM, delta sleep, and awakening." Brian circled a group of four snaggletoothed lines on the monitor.

"The electrooculogram, the EOG, measures movement of the eyes, and tells us when REM occurs. That's how we know she's dreaming." Brian pointed to a line near the top of the screen. "And the EMG, the electromyogram, measures movements. We can watch for sleep paralysis or muscle tension through that. The rest are measuring pulse, airflow, and other miscellaneous physical readings."

"Where do you get this stuff?" Anya asked.

Brian shrugged. "The university has a sleep center. I borrowed some of their stuff."

"You get to borrow a lot of things from the university, it seems." Anya thought of all the equipment he'd brought to play with at DAGR: thermal sensors, electromagnetic imaging equipment, video cameras... The back of his van was like a portable Bat Cave.

"They don't really get to say no.

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